This is NOT a zombie flick

Rating: 9/10 (27 June 2003)

I went into "28 Days Later" wearing my zombie gore b-flick hat. I soon realized that this was no low-budget horror film. This is a stylish, well-written, well-acted, beautifully painted exploration of the basic question, what is it that makes us human? Why do we build societies, create art, and make sacrifices for others instead of just being animals?
The question is explored through the interaction of three groups of people. First, there's Jim, Selena and Hannah. They care about each other and the future. They haven't given up. They're fighting for a tomorrow. Then there's the infected. The infected are NOT zombies; they haven't risen from the dead looking for human flesh. They're the victims of a disease that reduces them to an unreasoning, animal state. They can't even feed themselves. They're the destructive, self-consuming side of human nature, with no thought of the future and no reliance on one another. Finally, there's the remnant of an army brigade holed up in a mansion, with no concern other than keeping the infected out and carving an empire from the ashes of the world for themselves. They see themselves as the center of the future, and they're representative of the cold, cruel, calculating side of human nature.
The infected aren't the stars of the film, and they're not meant to be. The disease they suffer is a plot device that propels the question at the heart of "28 Days Later" across the screen throughout its brilliant cinematography, with its technique of blending stark, horrific realism with artistic, almost hallucinatory, images. It's the tension between these aspects of the psyche that are really the centerpiece of this movie.
The acting in this film has moments of real brilliance, and there are moments of real horror. The horror comes not just from bloody images and graphic violence, of which there aren't nearly as many as one would expect in a movie billed as a horror flick. It comes from the realization that the destructiveness and rage embodied in *all* three sides of the story exist within all of us. Any of us could be the infected, or the army, or the heroes of the film. In the end, the film answers its central question with hope. It's hope that sets man apart from the animals and drives us do great things. Even without the disease that creates the infected, we learn that our humanity perishes when our hope disappears. That's true of the infected, and it's also true of the soldiers.
Danny Boyle has served up an excellent, thought-provoking film that deserves better than to be billed simply as the reinvention of the zombie horror movie. In fact, it is because of this marketing ploy that "28 Days Later" will likely escape critical notice and fade into oblivion, even though it is much more in the tradition of films like "On the Beach" than it is in the line of "The Evil Dead" or "Return of the Living Dead." That's a shame, because this is Boyle's best work since "Trainspotting," and a refreshing change from the usual summer fare typified by this year's crop of "X2" and "The Matrix: Reloaded" and "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle."
If you want to see a zombie flick, go for it. I love a bad, nasty, gory horror film as much as anyone on the planet. I've thus seen enough of them to know that what I just saw wasn't one of them. This may well be one of the best films of the summer, if not the year. It deserves much more attention than it's getting, or is likely to get. The scene of the heroes driving down a deserted road bordered with flowers that dissolve into something one is more likely to see in a Van Gogh painting than in a summer horror movie is alone worth the price of admission. If you can stomach Boyle's mixture of graphic realism with artistic, hallucinatory imagery, and you're open to something more intricate than rampaging green giants and chicks with PVC pants and whips, go see this film. It may be slow in a couple of spots (especially if you're expecting hordes of the living dead chowing down on live human flesh!), but overall it's fantastic stuff. You won't be disappointed.